The Value of Tears

I wrote a little monologue about pain last year. I found it recently and composed it into a poem. The poem doesn't cover all my thoughts of pain. You can probably read too much into it, or too little, but I hope this poem brings comfort to some who are hurting.  

The Value of Tears

By Melody Beerbower, composed 10-19-16

It is not a great comfort to know,

when you are truly hurting,

that there are people

suffering worse things than you.

Either it makes you ashamed

that you should be heartbroken

over such a “small” thing,

without doing anything to relieve your hurt,

or it makes you suffer twice over

that there should be more pain in the world

than that which you now feel.

There you wobble

between pain, shame, and hopelessness,

so consumed with one emotion that you believe

surely you cannot feel another.

Yet there is another. And another.

And yet one more—

all tumbling upon you,

each burning with the same intensity as the first,

until you are sure that your heart will burst

with the pain and confusion of it all.

But your eyes burst first,

spitting out the betraying tears.

Tears you must hide,

for what right have you to cry?

What right even has your heart to break?

Your troubles are small. So, so, small.

And others, others have the right to cry.

Look at all they have suffered!

A thousand indescribable tortures.

And here you are with your little trials,

and your little pains—

Will not tears lose their value

if they are spent on such things as these?

Yet who has measured the value of tears?

Can they do more

than water the thorns that brought them forth?

Still there is One.

One who counts the tears.

One who gathers them into His bottle.

He knows their value,

for did He not know their sting?

Yet He does not name one of greater worth

and one of less.

Each tear that falls,

falls not to water death but life,

for death is dust, but life is soil.

And when at last pain loses

its strangling grasp on our hearts,

He is there to dry the tears,

reminding us that one day there will be no need

for the salty rain to water the earth,

and on that day, instead of bursting with pain, 

our hearts will burst with song.